However, something that I think the essay modestly overlooks is the non-financial elements. The investors made a huge difference in my life & that of the others that worked for FathomDB. I like to think that we moved the industry forward a little bit in terms of thinking about modular services (vs a monolithic platform-as-a-service) although it turned out that the spoils went mostly to the cloud vendors. Many of the ideas developed live on in open-source today.
Of course, this all serves Ron's point in that it doesn't make for a good investment. But that doesn't mean that no good came of it - and it makes me want to work harder next time so that it is both a good outcome and a good investment.
So: thank you to Ron and all our investors. It is no accident that you are called angels.